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February 04, 2005
Tactical Voting
Stuart Dickson has a fascinating article on ‘Anti-Labour Tactical Voting’ on his Independence blog.
I have been saying that voting patterns in the coming election are going to be more complicated than the pollsters are allowing for, so I was interested to read about the possibility of ‘tactical unwind’. Apparently there may be up to two dozen English Labour seats, now propped up by the tactical votes of anti-Tory Liberal-Democrats, which could unravel if the third party voters decide to switch sides and vote Conservative.
Meanwhile the Save the Scottish Regiments Campaign is encouraging tactical voting by backing particular SNP, Tory and Liberal-Democrat candidates. This includes the SNP’s Angus MacNeil in the Western Isles. Maybe a good target?
Stuart declares that he would never vote tactically, but isn’t that what MPs and MSPs do every week of their parliamentary careers? Why should voters be different? After all we live in an imperfect democracy, and many important issues are not party-based.
scottish-independence.blogspot.com/2005/02/anti-labour-tactical-voting.html
Posted by Simon Holledge at February 4, 2005 02:56 PM
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Comments
You have a wee typo there, I think SPP should be SNP.
Also, "tactical unwind" does not mean LibDems switching from Labour to Tory, but from Labour back to their natural LibDem home. If LibDems were actually switching to Tories then the Tories would be about to win in England. There is absolutely no evidence for that, indeed the Tories seem to be actually seeping support the other way. Labour are thus going to walk the coming general election at Westminster.
You highlight Angus Brendan MacNeil, but Stewart Hosie and Annabelle Ewing are also good possibilities for SNP gains.
I could never vote tactically because I only ever vote for Scottish independence. We are never going to re-attain self-government by voting LibDem or Tory - they are just as bad as Labour, if not worse.
Posted by: Stuart Dickson at February 4, 2005 06:28 PM
Thanks for the proofreading! Much appreciated.
Thanks also for clarifying 'tactical unwind'. I thought it was a matter of Lib Dems not voting Labour, rather than Lib-Dems voting Lib-Dem, but I guess it's all theoretical. I haven't seen the FT article. Have you?
Interestingly the Guardian page has been hit by comment spam - the same people I have now managed to filter out.
You say Annabelle Ewing would be an SNP gain - is that because her constituency has been redrawn? After all she is an MP now.
Posted by: Simon Holledge at February 4, 2005 07:15 PM
Yes, technically the new seat of Ochil and South Perthshire is a Labour seat, with a tiny majority over the SNP. Contrary to popular belief, the Tories are far behind under the new boundaries.
See Baxter's Electoral Calculus Scottish pages for details. You'll find link under General Election - statistics at my Independence blog.
Posted by: Stuart Dickson at February 5, 2005 03:12 PM